Sunday, January 27, 2008

The Great North and South Crusade

It's official!

I'm now a Crusader!

My special guest this weekend was Kristie(J) from Ramblings on Romance but I'm sure most of you figured that out. She had sent me an e-mail quite a while back (conflicts in scheduling) about coming out here and watching North and South with Daniela Denby-Ashe and Richard Armitage. I was all 'hell yeah!' and since I knew her kitchen was in reno stage (like many parts of my house) I suggested she come for dinner and then since the show was 4 hours long she should stay over night.

So we had a plan.

Three weeks in the making.

I have to admit there were a few times I was tempted to put the DVD in the box and play the movie. I even told her I had thought about watching the first few hours and then waiting to watch the rest when she came. Good thing I didn't because I wouldn't have been able to stop watching!

I sent her an e-mail this past Thursday and said 'oh yeah, bring your jammas cause I'm soooo going to be in mine!' PJ party!

It snowed here most of Saturday and I was glad Kristie braved the roads to come down. Since I'm not a great cook or maybe it's more like I don't cook a lot, I wasn't sure how long to cook the prime rib. Still, I suggested we go to Chapters while the roast was cooking - cause, like, it was after 5 in the afternoon and jammas are usually on at this point!

I bought six books and a magazine. I remember the magazine was Weight Watchers cause I'm such an impulse buyer but the books are upstairs in my bedroom where Bob and Cody are now sleeping. Kristie will nod and agree when I say that waking Cody is not really an option I want to run with right now. So tomorrow will be about the books.

We get home, the roast looks cooked (cause I'm not sure any of my meat thermometers are remotely correct, I swear I buy a new one every time I buy a turkey so I don't kill us all) and Kristie, bless her, is a meat and potatoes kind of gal. Not only that she likes PEAS!!! I've never met another person who would prefer peas over corn. Never! My mother and father will eat them but if given a choice, my whole family would eat corn. Bob's the same way.

So we have dinner - yummy if I do say so myself and then Kristie and I scram upstairs to change and get ready to watch North and South (see I was getting there).

All I can say is that when the BBC does a production, they do it right. I was never bored and the scenes inside the cotton mill were gorgeous! Richard Armitage who plays the hero Thornton, was easy on the eyes but in reality, he was brilliant as Thornton. I couldn't imagine anyone else playing this character and I think that says a lot about his portrayal. The heroine Margaret Hale, played by a wonderful actress, Daniela Denby-Ashe, was a woman of her time and yet, she seemed so modern in her thoughts and ways. It's amazing to think this story was written over 150 years ago by Elizabeth Gaskell. (Kristie says there is no kissing in the book so I'm not going out of my way to read it. Hush. It's my way.)

All the same, I wish this was the kind of book we studied in school. All the socio-economical angst is there for the deciphering, the growth and hardship of the unions dealing with work conditions that were literally killing them and their children, the mindset of the 'masters' or captains of industry as I would call them. A woman who can see both sides and isn't set on any one person or group being evil. (Okay, she had a few bad moments but for the most part she believed in Thornton)

That was the brilliance of this story. No one was evil. I felt horribly sorry for the man who had a sick wife and six children being forced to strike knowing that his children could possibly starve. Thornton felt he paid his employees well and with competitive prices in cotton from overseas, it was all he could do to keep his mill from going under. It was getting these two warring factions to come together and talk about the problems that would ultimately save them.

Kristie is probably ready to kill me about now. What about the romance!!!??

Loved it. I liked that Thornton and Miss Hale were always trying to find a way to talk to each other without making the other one crazy mad. At the two hour mark there was a scene (I don't want to spoil it for anyone) that once it played, I turned to Kristie and was all, 'I don't get it' Good thing Kristie was there to talk me down ;)

After finishing the movie, I knew Miss Hale better and figured out why she may have made the decisions she did.

I have to say after the final scene (had me teary eyed) I was itching to play it again. But again, I try not to let crazy out to play often in front of others. Kristie was kind enough to see my distress and commented how others often watched the final scene a few times. SWEET!

I'm not going to admit how many more times I plan on watching that final scene again. But I'm betting I can find it on Youtube.

OH! So Kristie was telling me about the contest her and Katiebabs are running and mentioned that bloggers or those who love the movie could write an epilogue if they wanted.

Talk about killing me!

Kristie declared the next morning when I told her I had gone to bed with an epilogue floating around in my brain, that I was bitten by the bug.

I may yet try and write down the epilogue swirling in my brain - mine wouldn't have sex or anything, just more of a 'year later' kind of epilogue. Course, I'm not a writer and I know how often something will start out in my brain only to de-rail when trying to get the damn thing down on paper.

Okay, I'll sign off for now as I'm sure you're scratching your head over most of my post. I always have good intentions about how I'll be short and concise. Then I remember you've been here before.

And I say your dinner was yummy too!! And LOL about the peas. I'd say all us sister are pea people but that sounds weird doesn't it? And Ryan's a pea person too *g* And once you start reading (you do have a lot to catch up on :-) you'll realize that yes, the romance is the hook, the part that puts it above everything else I've seen, but the rest of it, the different classes, the different settings, struggle between mill owners and mill workers, all the other characters, are also part of it's brilliance. So apart from the romance it's a fabulous series. And Richard Armitage's gorgeousness puts it in a class of it's own for me. So going on about everything else before getting to the love story is just as important!!And again *laughing* if I'd know you wanted to, I would have said let's watch the train scene again, and again, and again!!

Nath: We will get you my pretty. You can't resist the force forever young Nath. Join the force.(see - I'm good at mixing movies)